Book 4 — chapter five: The Last Game of Conquer

IF it had not been that Parson said I must be careful to write all, and leave out none, since to know all made folks kind, but to know a part made ’em worse than if they knew nothing, if it hadna been for that, I’d never have tried to write of those three months at Sarn betwixt the time of the death of Jancis and the time of the troubling of the waters. For there are some things so hard to write of that even a great scholar might boggle at it, and I, though I can do the tall and the short script, am not anything of a scholar, and words be hard to find for some things. I think, times, that in our mortal language there are no words for the things that are of most account. So, when those things come upon us we are struck silent, and can but feel and feel, till our hearts are like a bursting dam. Maybe, in the life yonder, that already I begin to glimpse on the edge of this world, we shall find the proper words. But not yet So, if I fail in what I’ve set out to do, you must pardon what I canna help, and fill up the glats in my speech with the brushwood of your own imagining.

The strangest part of that time was the silence of it. Gideon had always been a silent man, but now he was as bad as the miller. He’d come and he’d go, but not a word would pass his lips. And sometimes he’d stop all of a sudden, as he went about his work, as if he’d been struck of a heap by summat. His thoughts, I guessed it to be. Then he’d straighten his shoulders, and mighty shoulders they were, and go about his work again. I thought it would pass in time, and as nothing was settled between him and Tivvy yet, I made up my mind not to leave the poor lad all alone, but to bide still for a while. Tivvy was in a fix, for she was determined to have Gideon, and yet she was so mortal afraid of the frittening, for the frittening is said to be very bad in a place where mother and babe die together, that she durstna set foot our side of the mere at all. So there we were, in a thick, cruddled silence, that grew ever more and more solid like freezing water or souring milk. Save for the birds, that minded their own affairs and took no thought of us, there were no voices uplifted at Sarn. Evenings, when they hushed, it fell so still that I could hear Gideon’s boat, moored just by the beginning of the caus’y, knocking and knocking with small, reminding taps. And, times, in the kitchen of a night, when Gideon was out, working late at the hoeing of the young corn or at the haying, I’d hold up a bit of tasty victuals to Pussy just to make her mew. And I’d say, “There, now thee’s mewed! Good Pussy!”

When he was in, Gideon was as dumb as the drowned, save that once, on a night of bright moonlight when we were having our supper late after haying, he leaned forrard of a sudden and said—

“Did ye see that?”

“What?” I says.

“Why, somebody went by the door, in a white gown.”

But it wasna till July, in a spell of very thundery weather, hot and still and gloomy, that his strangeness came upon him in good earnest. I was sitting in the doorway, to get what air there was, for it drew off the mere, evenings. I was carding wool, and the white of it, heaped up on my black, made me look like a magpie, I thought. The lilac leaves were limp with the heat, and the mere like hot lead to look at, with the tall thick trees around it, carven out of iron. All round the marges of the mere were the lilies, lying on the heavy water, their small white buds shining. Not a bird spoke, for all were in their coverts, since the heat was so great. Even the water-birds stayed among the reeds, and the boat had given over knocking on the steps, as if the day was fixed now for the passenger to come, and there was no more to do till then. Suddenly Gideon came round the corner all in a sweat of haste, with the brummock in one hand and his hedging gloves still on, for he was busy at the hedges between hay and corn harvest. He stopped when he saw me, and put hand to head, and then broke out in a passion—

“What for do ye sit there the like of that, making game you’re Mother?”

“I never made game to be Mother,” I said. “Whatever ails you?”

“Mother was used to sit there and card wool. I thought you were Mother.”

“Well, I couldna help that,” I said. “But what did you come round the corner in such a courant for?”

“I was pleaching the big thorn hedge, and she came upon the top of it, all in white.”

“Who came upon the top of it?” I asks, impatient

“Jancis,” he says, as quiet as could be, not as if he was saying anything strange, but just as he might speak of seeing Tivvy or Polly Miller. He said no more, but went back to his work, though he gave up the hedge. He’d never argue at all about what he saw, but just say he saw it, and that was all. The next time was when he was hoeing in the big wheat field. He came into the house, very hasty, with the hoe and all, and said he’d seen Jancis ploughing with her two white oxen, in the barley field, and the child sitting up on the nighest ox.

“Now look you, Gideon,” I said, “you mun leave thinking of Jancis, or you’ll be possessed. And a man possessed is pretty far on to madness. You just think of getting on and scraping and saving as you used to, and dunna think of Jancis or Mother till you’re more settled in your mind.”

“I dunna think of Jancis. She just comes.”

“Well, set your mind on other things and she wunna.”

“What things?”

“Why, getting rich, and getting the house.”

“What for?”

“For the same reason you began of it. Because you want it.”

“I dunna want it now.”

“But why? You wanted it so much, you poisoned Mother. You wanted it so much, you gave the nay-word to Jancis. Let alone all the things you did afore, you must have been pretty well clemmed for it to do as you did.”

“Well, I dunna want it now.”

“What for not?”

“Summat went out of it when I did see ’em in the water.”

“Well, think of Tivvy, then. She’d like to go to the Hunt Ball, I know.”

“I wunna take up with Tivvy. I’d liefer swing.”

“Miss Dorabella, then. She’s sweet on you. Take up with her, and she’ll spend her money to save you from Tivvy.”

“Dorabella’s abron. I like a fair woman. Little. With blue eyes. A woman like may and milk.”

“Well, think of me then. Be a bit of company for me now and again.”

“But you be going.”

“Not till you’re more settled in mind, lad. I’ll stop on a bit, if you’ll keep a cheerful heart, and not call old grief to mind.”

But it was no use. In less than a week he came in all of a hurry and said—

“She’s at it again.”

“What, ploughing?”

“Ah. And the barley field’s as bald as a coot.”

“It’s bad seed,” I says, “that’s what it is, Gideon. It’s because you had to buy instead of putting in our own.”

But my heart was heavy, and I couldna see what the end of this would be. I even wished Tivvy would come.

It got to be the usual thing for him to say—

“She came again in the wood to-day.” Or he’d say—“Look ye! There she is, drawing in to the caus’y. There! Now she’s coming up the caus’y, dripping wet. There! Now she’s gone.”

Once he said she beckoned from the boat. But it was always out of doors he saw her, so the house was a kind of refuge, and when he suffered that strange fear, in he’d come, and be more himself. I was glad he never saw anything in the house. I was glad, too, that he never heard anything. It was like as if, being smitten to the heart with the sight of her in the water, he’d lost the power to choose what he saw, but could still choose what he heard. And then, at the beginning of August-month, when the corn was just on ripe, he came in and said she’d been singing Green Gravel across the water.

“The sound comes in here,” he said, anxious. So I shut the window.

“Best put some wool in your ears,” I said. For indeed it was pitiful to see a man like Gideon trembling at a gleam of white in the hedge or an echo across the water. So he put wool in his ears and we got on pretty well through the first part of August. Then, it was the evening afore the fair at Sarn Mere, and many of the booths were already set up. We sat down early to our supper because there had come a letter from Miss Dorabella, brought by one of their men, with news in it about Beguildy. So I opened the letter and read it to Gideon, and he took the wool out of his ears to hear; and what it said was that they’d let Beguildy off light, because he’d had great provocation on account of his daughter.

“Domm!” says Gideon. The blazing hate in him burnt up afresh at hearing of the light sentence, and I almost thought it might cure him of seeing things. But in a little while he fell into his melancholy again, and said he’d seen Mother in the oakwood, where the pigs were.

“Now, dear to goodness,” I said, “it was nobody in the world but Miller’s Polly. She’s getting a big girl for her age, and Mother was but little.”

“No,” he said. “It was Mother. They bother me, Prue.”

“There, there!” I said, patting him on shoulder like a child. For indeed when he spoke of his haunting, he seemed as weak and full of fear as a child in the dark.

“Now see, it’ll all come right,” I said. “You must be well plucked and not mind. You was used to be so fond of Conquer. Well, now you must play Conquer with your own thoughts.”

But he only looked at me as if he didna understand, and said—

“What she didna like was me speaking unkind of the babe. Very touchy, mothers be, about their babes.”

We sat quiet a bit, and then he said, all of a sudden—“Hark ye! She’s singing Green Gravel.”

He listened a long while, though I could hear nothing.

Then he leaned forrard and said she was coming up off the caus’y toërts the house. His face broke out in a sweat, as if he was feared out of his life. But indeed the weather was enough to make anybody sweat without that, it was so hot and dank at once, the worst weather of all at Sarn, which never had much air, being down in a hollow, and which was always damp from the water. On an evening such as this, the walls ran down with water, so that the whitewash shone as if with the tracks of many snails. Over the mere a mist was rising, in trails and wisps, white as wool, thickening and gathering into clotted heaps towards the mid of the mere. Sometimes a wreath of mist would be drawn out like a scarf, and other times it would stand up in the shape of a woman, but wavering upon the air. It seemed to me it might well be one of these ghosts of mist that Gideon had seen. For they rose and sank about the caus’y all the while, as the light airs on the water took them. At Sarn in August there were always heavy mists night and morning, and this was out of the common bad, because we’d had thunder-rain the night before, and a day of brooding heat after it. Bad, I say, because I never could abide mist, and we had such a deal of it, so that sometimes it blotted the farm and the woods and the church right out, as if the mere had turned to milk, and risen up and drowned all.

“Hark!” says Gideon. “Can you hear Green Gravel?”

So strong was his mind, and so much it had the mastery over mine, that I almost thought I did hear a wailing song. And then, without any warning, sitting in the big arm-chair with a set, yearning face, like a man enchanted, as I do think he was, Gideon began to sing the song himself. He held up his right hand, solemn, like parson giving the blessing, and he looked out through the doorway toërts the mere and the caus’y and the slow, white, curdling mist. He sang as if some power was on him that made him. You could see he was bound to sing. He had a rolling voice, a fine bass it was; and though he began very softly, it strengthened as he went on, till the music seemed to master the place. And the way he made that childish song mean such a deal!—all the love he’d had for Jancis, and how he’d wanted her to have everything so grand, and go to the Ball like a lady, and all the fear and pity of her ending. It seemed as if he was easier in mind after, having, as it were, given in and so made peace. Still watching the door, he says—

“Here’s Jancis. Soused with water she is, out of the mere.”

So I said I saw nothing.

“Why, look’s the water dripping off her gown!” he said. “See there, and there, where she goes! Sogging wet she is, by gum!”

He pointed to the floor, and indeed there was water in all the little hollows in the quarries, as if the mere had found a way to soak up through the floor. So I said, yes, I saw the water in the hollows of the quarries.

“Hark at the mud in her boots sooking! Muddy, the mere is. See now, how slow she comes—slow, like she used to walk when she spun with the big wheel. She walks slow because her clo’es are so heavy about her. It’s uphill and agen the heart for Jancis, with the mommet to carry all alone.”

Then he said, worried—

“I wish I hadna mocked at the babe.”

A long while went by. The sounds in the room were less than on the evening Father died. It was as if Sarn, all the live part of it, us and our beasts, the trees full of birds, and the wood ways with wild creatures in them, had sunk to the bottom of the mere where the village was. I was beginning to believe all Gideon said, which was not so very different, after all, from many a tale of frittening we’d heard.

“Look ye now!” he muttered. “She’s going toërts the dairy door. There, she’s gone! ’Twas in the dairy I gave her the nay-word that time afore she went to Grimble’s. There now, she’s coming back. Her yellow head does shine so, she makes me call to mind that wandering light at Lullingford New House.”

He was leaning forrard, staring down the dimmery passage that led to the dairy.

“There, look’s the wet floor!” he said. “It’s like as if she’d brought the mere in along of her. I never thought she’d come in the house. A castle’s easy kept when none comes against it. But now—”

He looked down at the wet quarries a good while.

“Why, she’s gone!” he said then. “Like a golden bee sailing away on the air, and singing as she goes. Look’s pretty!”

He stayed brooding a long time. Then he got up and told me he was going to see to the stock, for the evening was well on to night. He said that in his usual way, and I thought the frittening had lifted from his mind. But as he went out, he turned, and looked at me just as he did the night Beguildy went to seek a seventh child, and said—

“If I’m late, put the key over the stable door.”

I thought, no, if he was out so much as a half-hour, I should go after him. Indeed I almost did then. Summat told me to go. But it seemed so queer, when he was only going to see to the stock, to run after him. So I stayed where I was and began looking in Beguildy’s book, that I bought at the sale, and in the Bible, to see if I could find any cure for such bewitchments. I hadna been reading more than half an hour, if so much, and I suppose it was about nine o’clock, though it seemed later because of the muffling mist and the silence, when all of a sudden there was a taboring at the door, and in rushed Miller’s Tim and Polly too.

“Oh, Prue, Prue! we’d just brought the pigs along, being late because the black un wouldna come out of the rushes, and we’d put ’em in yard, quiet, for fear Mister Sarn ud be angry with us for being late, and we were looking for glow-worms under the orchard hedge, when out comes Mister Sarn. So we hid. And looking from under the hedge we saw him, standing by the water, with his head stooped forrard a bit, like a horse with the staggers. And I told Polly what I heard Granfeyther Callard say. ‘Sarn?’ he says, ‘Oh, Sarn’s known frittening of the beautiful bogey out of the mere, and he’ll never be his own man again.’ And while I was whispering that to Polly, Mister Sarn lifted up his head and seemed to look all around at everything, only there was not much but mist. Then he turned toërts the caus’y, going like a chap in his sleep, and went down the caus’y to the boat, and untied the boat, and got in and took up the oars, and rowed with big strokes away from the farm, straight out where the caus’y went, to the mid of the lake. So we ran round to see if we could get a blink of him, but he was in the mist. The noise of the oars went on for a while, and I wished I was in the boat. But in a bit I was glad I was on dry land. The sound of the rowing stopped.”

“Ah. Dead as dead it stopped,” said Polly.

“We held our breath to see if we could hear aught, but no! It was like the text parson learned us last Sunday, ‘There was silence over all the land till the ninth hour.’ Oh, it was solemn.”

“You should have come to me then,” I said. “But quick now! What else?”

“Why nothing else at all,” says Tim, “saving a great splash. I never heard such a splash, not even when the brindled calf fell into the water.”

“Ah. Dear to goodness, it was a splash!” says Polly.

“Then it went quieter and quieter, and we held breath and listened, but there was nought. And I did call on Mister Sarn’s name, but none answered. And I was feared and so was Polly, and we ran to you.”

The boat! I must get to the boat. I ran down the caus’y, tearing off my skirt, but there was no need to swim, for the boat was coming back, since the air drew from the other end of the mere, sending the currents toërts us, and these currents were stronger at the time of the troubling of the waters. A dreadful thing it was to see that empty boat come stealing in, slow, slow. I catched it and got in, taking up the oars which Gideon had unshipped, for even in this hour he couldna do anything slipshod or careless. I pulled out, calling to the children to run for Sexton, he being the nighest. They were soon gone, and glad to go. And I rowed out to the mid of the lake, feeling in the water with the oars, looking here and there, and calling his name, though I knew all the while it was too late. I was still rowing and calling when I heard Sexton shout from the shore.

“Me and Sam will go while you rest a bit,” he said. “But we’ll never find Sarn. You canna drag the mere out there. It’s too deep. None were ever found that went in there.”

They rowed away, and as they came toward the middle of the mere. I heard them singing, as we’d sung over Father long ago—

“Your good deeds and your bad, dear man,

Afore the Lord shall meet.”

Only they left out about the turf at head and foot, for the water was his grave. Ah! The whole of that great stretch of water wasna too much to make the grave of a man as strong as that one. The mile-long mist that lay upon the place wasna too grand a shroud. For though he was wrong, and did evil, and hurtid folks with his strength, yet he never did meanly, nor turned out bad work, nor lied. “The granite mountain, quartzite, b’rytes,” he said once to me, speaking of his own hardness. And he was like them all. He could no more give in than the granite can crumble like sandstone. And now he’d played his last game of Conquer, and what he played with wasna one of the big pink-and-white ones, but his own life.

And since the other player was one that none can ever hope to conquer, it shivered into brittle fragments in a moment, and so Gideon Sarn lost his last game.